


good memories seldom remember anything

by OptimalShip



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: After Ending, Allegiant Spoilers, F/M, Hurt, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1977714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimalShip/pseuds/OptimalShip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that people with good memories seldom remember anything worth remembering, and Peter figures that must be true. He can't remember the first sixteen years of his life, and always forgets where he put his keys. People with bad memories must remember everything worth remembering, and he knows that if anything is worth remembering, it's her.</p>
<p>Sometimes, when he's lying awake and can't sleep, Peter remembers things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	good memories seldom remember anything

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by my friend's fic to write one of my OTPs, Petris! (though it is sort of one-sided)  
> It's always one of my personal headcanons that Peter loved Tris, and I had to write something with it. I hope you enjoy this, and if you like Petris as much as I do, then I love you, because this ship is a tiny raft that we must keep afloat!

Sometimes, when he's lying awake and can't sleep, Peter remembers things.

Not many things. He doesn't remember his mother's maiden name, he doesn't remember why he had chosen Dauntless (he had been educated on the history once everything had settled down), he can't even remember the two people he had called his best friends when he had first joined the brave Faction.

But he remembers her.

He closes his eyes, and he can see the ones that belonged to her. Grey-blue has become his favorite color. He can see short blonde hair to match a short body, he can see muscles and sharp edges all over.

He knows every line in this girl's face, every way her body moves as she punches at something-a punching bag? Peter himself?-but for the life of him, Peter can't even remember her name.

He tosses and turns at night, grasping at nothing and yearning for anything, but he can't find a single memory of her even speaking.

He can see her fighting, running, her lips opening in the beginning of a shout. She's like a storybook heroine, in his mind. She saves people and doesn't let anyone save her.

But he feels as though that part is wrong, but he doesn't know why. He wonders if it has anything to do with how he swears he can feel her in his arms. She's softer than the images he's been given depict her. Warm and soft and she feels like home.

He sees memories a lot. She's shooting something close to him, or she's laughing at something from across a room, and he's straining over the heads to see her and thinking about why she has to be so short...

Then the memories disappear as suddenly as they came, and Peter is left gasping in the darkness of his room and wondering why his heart hurt so badly.

Who was the mystery girl, who he had never known, but who he was falling in love with for what felt like the second time?

Thinking of her feels almost inappropriate, and he thinks maybe she belongs to another. Maybe something happened and he wanted to forget her, forget the violent heroine who visits him every night in his dreams. But why would he ever want that? He yearns desperately to remember things now that he knows he couldn't possibly have wanted to forget her. Forgetting her must've been hard. It must've been like drowning, or falling. It must've felt like abandoning a part of him that was more vital than his heart.

Some nights he gets frustrated. He stomps around his house, he punches the wall, he screams into his pillows. He wants to remember her so badly, he wants to know what it sounded like to hear her mystery voice for the first time, he wants to know how they met, he wants to know if she loved him as much as he must've loved her.

Some nights he gets mad. He thinks that she must've done something quite awful to get him to want to forget everything about her. He wonders if it has anything to do with that feeling that she was someone else's. She must've done something terrible, must've hurt him in some way.

Slowly, he calms down. He hates himself for thinking that she has done anything wrong. She's perfect in every memory and he can't think of her as anything less. It's crazy how he can be so crazy for a girl he's never even met before.

They say that people with good memories seldom remember anything worth remembering, and Peter figures that must be true. He can't remember the first sixteen years of his life, and always forgets where he put his keys. People with bad memories must remember everything worth remembering, and he knows that if anything is worth remembering, it's her.

One day, an answer comes for him.

It's unexpected. He's on his way to work, taking a train. There's a TV at one end of the transportation, and he's absentmindedly watching it. The news reporter is talking about how it's the anniversary of the end of the Factions, and is naming some of the heroes.

Peter never pays attention to this. He doesn't remember it, and he doesn't care to know. It's a rude thing, to not pay attention to the people who made the world how it was today, but he doesn't really care. He just wants to get through the work day.

Just as his stop is coming up, he sees her.

He sees his grey-blue eyed girl, and at first he thinks he's dreaming. Because he never sees or hears about her when he's fully conscious. He can't even ask about her, because all he can give are vague descriptions.

But there she is, on the TV. Not in the flesh, but a photograph. She isn't smiling, but looking straight at the camera with those eyes that burn like blue flames. Her hair is a bit longer than he sometimes remembers, but just the picture of her is enough to knock the wind out of his lungs.

There's a name under the picture. Beatrice Prior.

But something inside of him tells him that's wrong. Beatrice wasn't her name. He knows her by something else. When it clicks in his mind, he almost cries out in euphoria. Tris. Her name is Tris, and he can't believe he only remembers it now.

He's almost too happy to listen to the rest of the show. But he has to, he has to know more. So he sits down in the train and misses his stop, and he learns about her.  
Her name is legally Beatrice, but she preferred to be called Tris.

She was in the old Faction Abnegation, but she transferred to Dauntless. She was the second ever Abnegation-to-Dauntless transfer. She was the first jumper, too (whatever that meant).

Her boyfriend's name is Tobias Eaton, and something inside of Peter both breaks and solidifies. He now knows that she truly was never his, and that she did love someone else.

The next bit was something he never thought he'd hear, because he always thought that he'd one day find her and get to hear her, see her, maybe even touch her if he's lucky. He daydreams about seeing her for the first time, but he never daydreamed that it'd be like this.

He never even had nightmares about this. But it makes him gasp out in pain regardless, makes him hunch over himself and work to catch his breath. It makes him feel like he's choking on air and that he can't breathe, because this was never a possibility that even remotely entered his mind.

That the first time he'd ever see the girl who he was in love with, that he'd find out that the first time he saw her would be on the anniversary of her death.


End file.
